DBMS- Data Base Management System

DBMS- Data Base Management System

Database is collection of data which is related by some aspect. Data is collection of facts and figures which can be processed to produce information. Name of a student, age, class and her subjects can be counted as data for recording purposes.

Mostly data represents recordable facts. Data aids in producing information which is based on facts. For example, if we have data about marks obtained by all students, we can then conclude about toppers and average marks etc.

A database management system stores data, in such a way which is easier to retrieve, manipulate and helps to produce information.

1 Characteristics

Traditionally data was organized in file formats. DBMS was all new concepts then and all the research was done to make it to overcome all the deficiencies in traditional style of data management. Modern DBMS has the following characteristics:

Real-world entity: Modern DBMS are more realistic and uses real world entities to design its architecture. It uses the behavior and attributes too. For example, a school database may use student as entity and their age as their attribute.

Relation-based tables: DBMS allows entities and relations among them to form as tables. This eases the concept of data saving. A user can understand the architecture of database just by looking at table names etc.

Isolation of data and application: A database system is entirely different than its data. Where database is said to active entity, data is said to be passive one on which the database works and organizes. DBMS also stores metadata which is data about data, to ease its own process.

Less redundancy: DBMS follows rules of normalization, which splits a relation when any of its attributes is having redundancy in values. Following normalization, which itself is a mathematically rich and scientific process, make the entire database to contain as less redundancy as possible.

Consistency: DBMS always enjoy the state on consistency where the previous form of data storing applications like file processing does not guarantee this. Consistency is a state where every relation in database remains consistent. There exist methods and techniques, which can detect attempt of leaving database in inconsistent state.

Query Language: DBMS is equipped with query language, which makes it more efficient to retrieve and manipulate data. A user can apply as many and different filtering options, as he or she wants. Traditionally it was not possible where file-processing system was used.

ACID Properties: DBMS follows the concepts for ACID properties, which stands for Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation and Durability. These concepts are applied on transactions, which manipulate data in database. ACID properties maintains database in healthy state in multi-transactional environment and in case of failure.

Multiuser and Concurrent Access: DBMS support multi-user environment and allows them to access and manipulate data in parallel. Though there are restrictions on transactions when they attempt to handle same data item, but users are always unaware of them.

Multiple views: DBMS offers multiples views for different users. A user who is in sales department will have a different view of database than a person working in production department. This enables user to have a concentrate view of database according to their requirements.

Security: Features like multiple views offers security at some extent where users are unable to access data of other users and departments. DBMS offers methods to impose constraints while entering data into database and retrieving data at later stage. DBMS offers many different levels of security features, which enables multiple users to have different view with different features. For example, a user in sales department cannot see data of purchase department is one thing, additionally how much data of sales department he can see, can also be managed. Because DBMS is not saved on disk as traditional file system it is very hard for a thief to break the code.

2 Users

DBMS is used by various users for various purposes. Some may involve in retrieving data and some may involve in backing it up. Some of them are described as follows:

Administrators: A bunch of users maintain the DBMS and are responsible for administrating the database. They are responsible to look after its usage and by whom it should be used. They create users access and apply limitation to maintain isolation and force security. Administrators also look after DBMS resources like system license, software application and tools required and other hardware related maintenance.

Designer: This is the group of people who actually works on designing part of database. The actual database is started with requirement analysis followed by a good designing process. They people keep a close watch on what data should be kept and in what format. They identify and design the whole set of entities, relations, constraints and views.

End Users: This group contains the persons who actually take advantage of database system. End users can be just viewers who pay attention to the logs or market rates or end users can be as sophisticated as business a analyst who takes the most of it.

3 DBMS - Architecture

The design of a Database Management System highly depends on its architecture. It can be centralized or decentralized or hierarchical. DBMS architecture can be seen as single tier or multi tier. n-tier architecture divides the whole system into related but independent n modules, which can be independently modified, altered, changed or replaced.

In 1-tier architecture, DBMS is the only entity where user directly sits on DBMS and uses it. Any changes done here will directly be done on DBMS itself. It does not provide handy tools for end users and preferably database designer and programmers use single tier architecture.

If the architecture of DBMS is 2-tier then must have some application, which uses the DBMS. Programmers use 2-tier architecture where they access DBMS by means of application. Here application tier is entirely independent of database in term of operation, design and programming.

3-tier architecture

Most widely used architecture is 3-tier architecture. 3-tier architecture separates it tier from each other on basis of users. It is described as follows:

Database (Data) Tier: At this tier, only database resides. Database along with its query processing languages sits in layer-3 of 3-tier architecture. It also contains all relations and their constraints.

Application (Middle) Tier: At this tier the application server and program, which access database, resides. For a user this application tier works as abstracted view of database. Users are unaware of any existence of database beyond application. For database-tier, application tier is the user of it. Database tier is not aware of any other user beyond application tier. This tier works as mediator between the two.

User (Presentation) Tier: An end user sits on this tier. From a users aspect this tier is everything. He/she doesn't know about any existence or form of database beyond this layer. At this layer multiple views of database can be provided by the application. All views are generated by applications, which reside in application tier.

Multiple tier database architecture is highly modifiable as almost all its components are independent and can be changed independently.

4 DBMS - Data Models

Data model tells how the logical structure of a database is modeled. Data Models are fundamental entities to introduce abstraction in DBMS. Data models define how data is connected to each other and how it will be processed and stored inside the system.

The very first data model could be flat data-models where all the data used to be kept in same plane. Because earlier data models were not so scientific they were prone to introduce lots of duplication and update anomalies.

5 Entity-Relationship Model

Entity-Relationship model is based on the notion of real world entities and relationship among them. While formulating real-world scenario into database model, ER Model creates entity set, relationship set, general attributes and constraints. ER Model is best used for the conceptual design of database.

ER Model is based on:

Entities and their attributes

Relationships among entities

Entity

An entity in ER Model is real world entity, which has some properties called attributes. Every attribute is defined by its set of values, called domain.

For example, in a school database, a student is considered as an entity. Student has various attributes like name, age and class etc.

Relationship

The logical association among entities is called relationship. Relationships are mapped with entities in various ways. Mapping cardinalities define the number of association between two entities.

Mapping cardinalities:

o  one to one

o  one to many

o  many to one

o  many to many

6 Relational Model

The most popular data model in DBMS is Relational Model. It is more scientific model then others. This model is based on first-order predicate logic and defines table as an n-ary relation.

The main highlights of this model are:

Data is stored in tables called relations.

Relations can be normalized.

In normalized relations, values saved are atomic values.

Each row in relation contains unique value

Each column in relation contains values from a same domain.

7 DBMS - Data Schemas

7.1 Database schema

Database schema skeleton structure of and it represents the logical view of entire database. It tells about how the data is organized and how relation among them is associated. It formulates all database constraints that would be put on data in relations, which resides in database.

A database schema defines its entities and the relationship among them. Database schema is a descriptive detail of the database, which can be depicted by means of schema diagrams. All these activities are done by database designer to help programmers in order to give some ease of understanding all aspect of database.

Database schema can be divided broadly in two categories:

Physical Database Schema: This schema pertains to the actual storage of data and its form of storage like files, indices etc. It defines the how data will be stored in secondary storage etc.

Logical Database Schema: This defines all logical constraints that need to be applied on data stored. It defines tables, views and integrity constraints etc.

7.2 Database Instance

It is important that we distinguish these two terms individually. Database schema is the skeleton of database. It is designed when database doesn't exist at all and very hard to do any changes once the database is operational. Database schema does not contain any data or information.

Database instances, is a state of operational database with data at any given time. This is a snapshot of database. Database instances tend to change with time. DBMS ensures that its every instance (state) must be a valid state by keeping up to all validation, constraints and condition that database designers has imposed or it is expected from DBMS itself.